The brand, owned by Pinnacle Foods, has started a recipe contest, "iCarly iCook with Birds Eye," for children to develop offbeat vegetable recipes. In an online-only video that was introduced on the Nickelodeon website on July 9, Jennette McCurdy, who stars on the show, encourages viewers to "create your own wacky veggie dish" for the contest.
Also beginning July 9, commercials on Nickelodeon are demonstrating the sort of offbeat dishes they seek, including the "veggie sundae," a scoop each of carrots, cauliflower and broccoli in a banana split dish, each scoop topped with a cherry. Viewers will submit recipes, hoping they'll be featured on an "iCarly" episode.
More than 90% of food products advertised on Saturday morning television programs, for example, exceed recommended dietary guidelines for sugar, fat or salt, according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And a 2006 study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that 88% of food commercials on Nickelodeon itself promoted unhealthy food.
But in 2007 Nickelodeon announced it would license its characters only for healthier foods. Currently Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants are both featured on packages of frozen edamame made by Seapoint Farms, for example. The "iCarly" campaign, which also includes print, in-store and digital advertising, will be promoted through the Facebook and Twitter accounts of both "iCarly" and Nickelodeon.
Fans of "iCarly" have already demonstrated an appetite for odd food combinations. In 2007, in what the show's creator, Dan Schneider, has said was just an offhand joke, the lead character's brother, Spencer, served the unlikely combination of hard taco shells filled with spaghetti in red sauce. As parents began fielding requests for spaghetti tacos, recipes popped up on numerous cooking sites and mom blogs -- and the dish became a running joke on the show.
